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Comment: The preliminary provisions of the ordinance comport in full with what the United <br />States Supreme Court has stated are the interests of the state, the offspring in the woman, and the <br />pregnant woman. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), the plurality opinion of <br />the Supreme Court confirmed “the principle that the State has legitimate interests from the outset <br />of the pregnancy in protecting the health of the woman and the life of the fetus that may become <br />a child.” 505 U.S., at 846. Moreover, "The Constitution does not forbid a State or city, pursuant <br />to democratic processes, from expressing a preference for normal childbirth." 505 U.S., at 872 <br />(internal quotation marks omitted). A law regulating abortion before viability that further state <br />interests, including the health of the woman, are valid unless the law constitutes an “undue <br />burden” on the woman’s ability to choose to terminate the pregnancy. 505 U.S., at 874. <br />WHEREAS, scientific evidence demonstrates that biologically human life is present from <br />the time of conception onward… <br />Comment: All genetic and embryological studies confirm that human life begins at conception. <br />Moore, Keith L. Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker Inc, 1988, p.2. That is <br />why the state has interests in the fetus from “the outset of the pregnancy.” 505 U.S. 846. <br />2. 503.01 DEFINITIONS <br />(i) "Health" means physical or mental health. <br />Comment: As noted below, O.R.C. 2919.17 (B)(2) explicitly excludes the woman’s mental <br />health as a justifiable exception to the prohibition of an abortion on a post viable unborn child. <br />(p) "Viable" means capable of surviving outside of the womb of the mother upon <br />premature birth, whether resulting from natural causes or abortion, or otherwise, and <br />whether that capacity exists in part due to the provision or availability of natural or <br />artificial life-support systems. <br />Comment: The legal definition of viability comports with the definition in Roe v. Wade, 410 <br />U.S. 113 (1973)(“potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid,” <br />410 U.S., at 160), and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (“the time at which there is a realistic <br />possibility of maintaining and nourishing a life outside the womb, so that the independent <br />existence of the second life can in reason and all fairness be the object of state protection that <br />now overrides the rights of the woman,” 505 U.S., at 871). <br />The legal definition of viability is in contrast to the medical definition of “viable pregnancy,” <br />which means that the unborn child in the womb is alive at whatever stage in the pregnancy. See <br />Peter M. Doubilet, M.D., Ph.D., Carol B. Benson, M.D., Tom Bourne, M.B., B.S., Ph.D., and <br />Michael Blaivas, M.D., Diagnostic Criteria for Nonviable Pregnancy Early in the First <br />Trimester, 369N.E.J.M.1443(2013). <br /> NGL ED <br />2 <br /> <br />